


if you don't want to, I don't want to (but if you do, I do)

by AlexSeanchai



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Akumatized Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Identity Reveal, Multi, pregnancy rumors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:08:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27104740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: First thing in the morning—she hasn't slept—she grabs Nino and Alya, tells Chloé Marinette will drag her along with her teeth if necessary, and hauls them all to Master Fu's by main force. Objective one, she tells everyone, isdon't lose anyone else. Objective two—and these are sorted by importance and ability to regroup and try it again later—rescue Chat Noir's civilian identity, Adrien, and anyone else who looks hostage-like. (All praise grammatical ambiguity.) Objective three, retrieve the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculouses, in that priority order. Objective four, capture or kill Gabriel Agreste—capture is strategically preferable, but kill is more personally satisfying—and capture his Peacock-bearing accomplice. Any questions?"Just one," says Nino. "What the ever-loving fuck.""Don't make me answer that," says Marinette. "Figure it out yourselves. I told him I'd tell him first of anyone, as soon as it was safe. Itisn'tsafe and Ican'tkeep the spirit of that promise butdon'tmake me break the letter.""Please tell us what happened.""He left me a little present." Marinette slaps Chat Noir's Miraculous onto the table.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste & Chloé Bourgeois & Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng & Nino Lahiffe, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Chloé Bourgeois, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Chloé Bourgeois/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Chloé Bourgeois/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 7
Kudos: 61
Collections: Good Intentions: Abandoned and Unfinished WIPs





	if you don't want to, I don't want to (but if you do, I do)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the outline; it never got, and at this point (2020 October 19) probably never will get, to be the full fic.

Chat Noir asks Ladybug if she trusts him—"I need you to trust me"—then tells her not to trust the Agrestes, and to find someone more worthy of this ring. He ducks out of sight, she follows, she finds his Miraculous and a key with a note that identifies the post office box the key opens. No him. She tracks him, spots a guy in a hoodie who moves just like her partner. He looks back, doesn't see her—but she sees his face. Adrien.

Marinette spends the night very upset but working things out with Tikki. First thing in the morning—she hasn't slept—she grabs Nino and Alya, tells Chloé Marinette will drag her along with her teeth if necessary, and hauls them all to Master Fu's by main force. Objective one, she tells everyone, is _don't lose anyone else_. Objective two—and these are sorted by importance and ability to regroup and try it again later—rescue Chat Noir's civilian identity, Adrien, and anyone else who looks hostage-like. (All praise grammatical ambiguity.) Alive and intact by preference, but after Syren she's not convinced that's wholly necessary, and in any event she intends to break Chat's pretty face. And much as they all want to believe all the hostages are friendlies, they have to assume they're all compromised. Objective three, retrieve the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculouses, in that priority order. Objective four, capture or kill Gabriel Agreste—capture is strategically preferable, but kill is more personally satisfying—and capture his Peacock-bearing accomplice. Any questions?

"Just one," says Nino. " _What the ever-loving fuck._ "

"Don't make me answer that," says Marinette. "Figure it out yourselves. I told him I'd tell him first of anyone, as soon as it was safe. It _isn't_ safe and I _can't_ keep the spirit of that promise but _don't_ make me break the letter."

"Marinette," says Master Fu, "please tell us what happened."

"That ratfucker," says Marinette, "left me a little present." She slaps Chat Noir's Miraculous onto the table.

La la la strategizing. Nino suggests patience—they need to investigate and have _proof_ before they do anything that could backfire on them. And if that takes weeks, well then that takes weeks. Marinette reluctantly agrees. They eventually get back to school—Alya, Nino, and Chloé all have their own Miraculouses on their persons, and Marinette point blank refuses to put Adrien's into the hand of anyone but Adrien, so she's carrying it in her purse. Adrien's there, acting as though nothing whatsoever has changed. Marinette freaks the fuck out. Chloé corners her alone, observes that Marinette's going to be emotionally compromised for the duration, and proposes defending Marinette's secret by trashing her reputation. To wit, Chloé will spread rumors that Marinette's pregnant—the hormonal complications alone will be able to explain any emotional outbursts or out-of-character behavior, and the unidentified father's total absence from the picture will only amplify that. It'll work because Chloé (it is known) is a vicious bitch who puts the worst possible interpretation on everything and also flat out hates Marinette, and—you didn't hear this from Chloé, of course—sometimes she's simply wrong, but Chloé never _lies_. Marinette jolts—"Objective four C," she says, "Lila"—and thinks about this. "We don't have to do this if you don't want to do this," Chloé says, and Marinette says, "Let's do it."

La la la waiting. Dead silence on the akuma front. Marinette checks that post office box every couple of days, and there's usually something in it that she brings straight to Master Fu without looking at it. Adrien quietly isolates himself—the other four do try to behave normally but none of them are succeeding (and Adrien was never that close to anyone else in the class in the first place), so it might not be entirely on Adrien, but mostly. Chloé's hanging out with Marinette an awful lot when nobody except maybe Alya and Nino are looking. (What about Sabrina?) At some point it comes up that Chloé has been crushing madly on Ladybug, and _of course_ she's always loved Adrien, and while Chloé is perfectly content to wave a handkerchief from the dock as the good ship Ladrien sets sail, she'd rather like to get them both on board with a permanent threesome. Marinette is…not entirely opposed.

Planned incursion, Chez Agreste: Chloé qua Chloé visits Adrien. The other three, qua LB/C/RR, sneak in and investigate. Something goes south. Queen Bee grabs Adrien and _runs like hell_. Not sure how far past the city limits they get before she sees the butterfly mask flicker into life on Adrien's face. She hollers for Ladybug. Adrien tries to escape. Queen Bee catches him. Adrien tries again but Hawkmoth orders him to not, since if he sits tight Ladybug will come to him. She does. They're outside somewhere, a populated area. Lucky Charm is a sharpie and all Ladybug can see to do with it is hand it to Adrien. He draws a butterfly on his hand. She breaks his arm, purifies the akuma, casts Miraculous Ladybug. She finds an alley to hide in without letting go of him. Earrings beep. She's crying. He buries his face in her shoulder and refuses to open his eyes. "I need you to trust me," he says. "I need you to be able to trust me. I need you to know you can trust me."

Adrien does not clearly remember anything at all since some mildly memorable occurrence at school the day before Chat Noir vanished.

Marinette calls Chloé to come get Adrien; she (qua Ladybug) will bail the moment Chloé arrives and maybe _then_ Adrien will feel comfortable opening his eyes. Chloé takes Adrien to a hotel room, two queen beds. She makes clear that she knows Adrien is Chat Noir ("was," Adrien corrects her). Marinette arrives a little later. She cannot open this conversation for the life of her. "I need you to unpack that 'can't'," says Chloé. "Don't want to," says Marinette, "really, massively, _epically_ do not want to." "For the love of all things holy, _why_?" but Marinette just shakes her head. Chloé rolls her eyes: "Okay, I'm leaving. Talk, fuck, play double solitaire, I don't even care, just get it out of your systems because you _know_ this isn't over." She comes back in an hour and they're playing double solitaire.

Marinette and Chloé argue over who's sleeping where, resolved by their sleeping in the same bed and leaving the other to Adrien. During the night, he wakes to the sound of Marinette and Chloé "trying not to wake him": they're fucking, and everything Chloé does is what Marinette says she wants Chat Noir to be doing right now. (Of course, thinks Adrien, and locks all contemplation of why Marinette and Chloé fucking makes Adrien sad in the vault beside all contemplation of who might be behind Ladybug's mask and what secrets Marinette might be keeping—y'know, the vault with the nuclear waste danger sign.) Partway through Chloé says something like "I'm not equipped for that without the toy box and I forgot the toy box, try again." He tries very hard not to peek, not to listen, not to appreciate the show in any way, but he is in fact an allosexual (or at any rate not wholly asexual) young man and he is only mortal, and he can't keep himself from whimpering loud enough that the girls will [realize they can no longer pretend not to] notice forever. Chloé kisses Marinette: "Hey Adrien, jealous?" and Adrien denies everything—if they're happy together, he's happy for them.

Chloé leaves Marinette bare-ass naked on the bed and pushes Adrien against the wall, trying to get him worked up. He doesn't want to play; he says something about wanting Ladybug to be his first. Marinette calls her off, orders her out, and asks him what if she herself were Ladybug. What would he want to do then? Could he pretend she's Ladybug? Adrien, because he's actually a total gentleman (he swears), tells her a fantasy or two, and he refuses to touch her himself (or to touch him himself, or to let her touch him) but he's willing to watch her touch herself (see also: only mortal) until she's satisfied, and then he is determined to forget it ever happened. Somewhere in here Marinette says "You don't have to do anything you don't want to. You don't _ever_ have to do anything you don't want to, not ever again."

Chloé returns eventually, gets updated, swears a lot, and tells Adrien that she's going to tell Ladybug to be on this roof in five minutes and she expects Ladybug's partner to be there. She extracts the Cat Miraculous from Marinette's purse and bounces it off his forehead. Adrien practically teleports to the roof.

"What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" Chat Noir asks Ladybug. She updates him on the strategic situation. Tries to get clarification on the identities conundrum—she repeats the "You don't have to" sentence pair and the "I need you to" sentence trio at least once each. He admits he's scared: there are three possibilities here. They have never met outside the masks, which he could live with, but he doesn't think it's likely. They have and he didn't try to get to know her, which he would hate himself for. And they have and he _does_ know her, but there's a real short list of possibilities there and the only one who hasn't been akumatized yet is—well, he's been trying to make friends with her since they met, because [insert list of admirable qualities aaaand she can't possibly want to hear him talk up another woman so he's going to stop now], but it's taken a lot of work since she started out hating him and he's not entirely sure she ever stopped, and also she's pregnant and it wasn't him so _clearly_ she's taken and he's out of luck!

(oooooops)

"What if she weren't taken?" asks Ladybug. "What if she didn't hate you? And what if she were me?"

"That'd be—gods, that would be _everything_. But I'm not that lucky, Ladybug. I'm _never_ that lucky. Please—please let me keep this."

Ladybug repeats both the "I need" trio and the "You don't" pair, and asks, "May I kiss you?" When he doesn't answer—talk about gobsmacked—she repeats, "Not if you don't want to. But I want to."

Somehow this transitions back into the Chloé-less hotel room, and Ladybug talks him into them both dropping their transformations by means of proposing a blindfold. He can, she explicitly says, take it off whenever he wants. So they're getting naked and they're getting busy and it's really hard for Adrien's thoughts to stay away from the danger vault and then Chloé comes in with Nino and Alya. Ladybug shrieks to them, "Close the door! Pick a side of the door to be on, I don't care which, just close that door!" And to him, she says, "You can get up so we can get dressed, or you can stay here and grab the covers. Your call." He opts for covers, because, he says, "I'm naked in bed with the love of my life—this is the best day ever!" Chloé rolls her eyes and says, "I hope you're using protection." (They are not.) Oh, and it's only Ladybug's identity Adrien is skittish around. Ladybug says, "Well, Rena Rouge is currently looking at me trying to figure out why I'm not having a heart attack, and Carapace is currently looking at you trying to figure out if he _wants_ your ass, wants to _have_ your ass, or wants to _kick_ your ass," and Adrien just slides under the covers and groans. ("It _is_ a very nice ass," says Chloé.)

Eventually they fall asleep—Nino and Alya have the other bed this time; Chloé claims to be perfectly content with a comforter and pillow on the floor—and when Adrien wakes up the blindfold's askew and he notices he's waking up with a black-haired girl before he realizes it's Ladybug. He doesn't see anything else before he fixes the blindfold, but when she does finally rejoin the land of the living, he has to admit he peeked. She bops him on the nose and transforms so that he'll ditch the blindfold.

Strategy session. Turns out Nino and Alya took so long to catch up because Rena Rouge and Carapace were rescuing an unidentified woman from Hawkmoth's captivity in the Agreste basement. "Oh," says Adrien in a very small voice. "No wonder I was cooperating with him."

They head back to Paris, which has been loudly wondering where their heroes are, given the akuma wreckage. At some point when they're a fair distance from that hotel, Ladybug ditches them and a few minutes later Marinette reappears, and Adrien point blank refuses to notice the problem with this picture.

While Carapace and Queen Bee go to try to contain the akuma, Rena Rouge drops Adrien and Marinette at the (not publicly disclosed) hospital where Jane Doe is being treated, telling the staff that Rena thinks she knows who the woman is but Adrien is the one who will know for sure. And it is indeed Émilie Agreste. Adrien says something about the trolley problem, and how he remembers they told Hawkmoth to his face that whatever Hawkmoth was wishing for had to be something evil— _had_ to be. Marinette wonders aloud if the Ladybug and Cat Miraculouses, and more to the point their two _bearers_ , could work together to heal Émilie, and how the strategic situation would then change. Adrien shakes his head. "I'm never that lucky," he says. "And anyway, Ladybug isn't here."

Marinette rolls her eyes and goes to find a bathroom. Shortly thereafter, Ladybug slips into the room. Adrien promptly asks if she thinks it's possible that Ladybug and Chat Noir could heal his mother. "I don't know if it will work," Ladybug cautions, "but you and me? Anything's possible." And Chat Noir grins. "Let's do it."

When Émilie wakes up (and the medical staff are done checking her over), she and they have got a _lot_ to catch each other up on before they even bring maskless Adrien into the picture past reassuring Émilie that he's fine. Émilie makes a suggestion, Ladybug calls in a favor from Nadja Chamack, and then there's a live news broadcast from somewhere that is _not_ Émilie's hospital room: she tells Paris that she is the woman Hawkmoth was holding captive, though she doesn't tell them her name or his, and she tells Hawkmoth that she is willing to return to him on the condition that he and his accomplice surrender the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculouses to Ladybug and Chat Noir. (Chat restrains himself from saying on air, "All you ever had to do was ask.")

At an agreed public place and time, Hawkmoth and Mayura approach Ladybug, Chat Noir, Queen Bee, Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Émilie. Hawkmoth and Mayura remove their Miraculouses; Nathalie doesn't promptly keel over but they can all see she's about to. Lila (and where the hell did she find out when-and-where?) tries to interfere but Rena decks her. Carapace confines Gabriel and Queen Bee is about to immobilize Nathalie but Gabriel begs them not to—"She needs medical attention. Something's wrong with the Peacock Miraculous." They all know this, Émilie brought them up to speed, but whatever: Queen Bee settles for holding Nathalie down. Ladybug takes both Miraculouses.

Émilie says, "You know we can't let you two go free." Gabriel says, "I know. I hoped." Ladybug says, "We'll take care of them. Émilie, and Nathalie, and your son." Gabriel, understanding perfectly well that he himself isn't getting out of this, looks over at Chat Noir, who has been silently standing there looking threatening, and back to Ladybug, and says, "Tell him—tell him I loved him. I didn't love him well enough and I clearly showed it wrongly, but—tell him my last thoughts are how much I love him." He glances at Chat Noir and says, "Make it quick."

Chat Noir walks up to him. Says "I'll make sure he knows." And punches Gabriel in the face. He turns away and goes to Ladybug and says, "I'm done."

"What, that's it?" says Ladybug, startled. "Don't you _want_ to kill him?"

"What, do you?"

"Very much so!"

Chat snorts. "I don't."

Ladybug nods. "Your call."

She confines an astonished Gabriel with her yo-yo. Hands him over to the police. Slightly later, summons a Lucky Charm—chapstick: she makes sure Chat Noir watches her apply it; kisses him; casts Miraculous Ladybug.

They repeat whatever they did to heal Émilie on Nathalie, bring both women to the hospital, and head over to Master Fu's. He's delivered all the various and sundry evidence that Adrien sent to that post office box to the police already. He calls Ladybug "young Guardian" and she faints dead away.

When she's conscious again, she asks Chat Noir if he's ready to see her yet. He shrugs. "Maybe soon. I—it would be a good thing, if I knew. I don't—there's too many bad things right now. There's no room."

"Let me know when," she says.

Queen Bee catches up shortly thereafter and hauls Ladybug into a kiss. She's perfectly happy with this until they hear Chat make a tiny unhappy sound: both girls freeze. "We didn't talk about this yet," Ladybug admits; "What do you _mean_ you didn't talk about this yet?" Queen Bee demands.

At some slightly later date, there is more Ladrien fucking with Adrien blindfolded. (In Marinette's bed, after Tom and Sabine offer Adrien their sofa as sleeping space indefinitely, to which Marinette tells her parents "If you tell him to go to sleep on the sofa and me to go to sleep in my bed, we'll do that. If you tell him to stay out of my bed, he'll respect that. But _I_ intend to wake up in his arms, and I'd rather do that in my bed. It's softer." Adrien doesn't hear this, but he's not pretending so hard anymore that he's absolutely ignorant here.) Ladybug tells him that what she wants is her and him forever, and she hopes he wants that too. Also, pursuant to a discussion with Chloé, she is hoping for also her and Chloé, and Chloé is hoping for the same and also herself and Adrien, to say nothing of herself and Ladybug and Adrien in various permutations. If Adrien wants to. He doesn't have to. And anyway, they've got ages. They can take it all slow.

Adrien says, "Let's get Chloé in here." When she arrives, Adrien asks if it's okay if he kisses her and she leaps on him, which actually gets Ladybug surprisingly hot and bothered. Adrien observes this, and says, "That suit looks good on you, Ladybug. But I bet it'd look better off you."

"Oh my _god_ , Chat," groans Ladybug. "Spots off." Adrien slams his eyes closed because he really can't help it, and when he finally works up the nerve to open them, the first thing he says is, "What happened to got-you-pregnant guy?" and Chloé and Marinette absolutely _die_. Somebody explains eventually. There is threesome fucking. Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> [My comment policy](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/post/612627045048008704/as-a-fic-writer-i-need-every-reader-to-know): tl;dr happy comments make me happy. So do thinky comments, of course, but there exist jerks who think only thinky comments are worth anyone leaving.
> 
> Find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/).


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